


Jihoon and the Wonwoo Problem: Why He Stands Out in Roman Mythology Class

by hopeboos



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Identity Reveal, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Secret Identity, Students, they r both idiots but especially jihoon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 08:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20272705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeboos/pseuds/hopeboos
Summary: “I just got my partner through for my Roman poetry project,” Jihoon says, picking up his phone again to stare at the email. He takes it all back; this project is a terrible idea, a disaster ready to happen.“Who is it?” Soonyoung says, shovelling more noodles into his mouth.“Jeon Wonwoo.”“Ha!” Soonyoung says, spitting out half of his mouthful again with the joy of his exclamation. “Your arch nemesis!”orIn which Jihoon grapples with his partnered project, Jeon Wonwoo, and whoever keeps requesting his library book out of his hands.





	Jihoon and the Wonwoo Problem: Why He Stands Out in Roman Mythology Class

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is dedicated to [lianne,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soonhan/pseuds/soonhan) [kay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acefluff/pseuds/acefluff) and [tash,](https://twitter.com/xiaoba_bb) because i tweeted about this completely [offhand](https://twitter.com/hope_boos/status/1158496961668046849?s=20) but you guys were so enthusiastic that i actually went and wrote it. love u guys hope u like it

“Don’t forget to start working on your partnered projects; I’m sure you’ll have plenty of work from the Roman Society module, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be lenient if your presentation is shit. Pick one book from Ovid’s _Metamorphosis_, and tell me why it’s the most important. It doesn’t matter if you’re right, it only matters that you argue it well. You’ll get an email assigning your partner tonight.”

With that, his professor clicks away from her presentation and starts gathering up her notes, everyone around Jihoon lurching into action with the dismissal. It startles him a little; he’d been in the middle of writing down the last thing she’d said, trying to keep up with the pace of her slides, and the partnered project thing had kind of washed over him. Now, though, with the girls in front of him complaining about how they can’t pick their own partners, he remembers reading about the partnered project when he’d chosen this module. Dread creeps up— partnered projects are a recipe for disaster. It’s rare to find someone who works in the same way as you, who wants to get things done before the last minute, someone who wants to put the same amount of effort into Roman poetry analysis as he does. He sighs, sliding his notepad into his backpack and shuffling down the row of seats to leave the lecture hall.

First things first, he’s not about to argue with his partner on this; book seven of the _Metamorphosis_ is the best one. They’re doing it on that book whether his partner likes it or not. Medea, the warrior witch, who killed her own children when Jason betrayed her—you don’t get more hardcore than that. He knows the perfect reading he can use for it too, has been eyeing it up ever since they’d studied book seven a few weeks ago; _Medea and the Female Legacy: Why She Stands Out in Roman Mythology_. Jihoon already know she stands out; she’s one of the only characters in Roman Mythology who isn’t insufferable. He can’t wait to read this book and have his opinion validated.

He has a free hour until his next class, so he might as well get ahead of the game and start his research now. It gives his project partner less room to argue, too, if he’s already prepared notes to base their presentation on. He checks the book out and settles down in the corner of the library, readying to leaf through and make notes on why Medea is the superior figure of Roman Myth. Maybe this project won’t be so bad after all, with her on his side.

-

Jihoon drops his phone onto his stomach, groaning and rubbing his eyes from where he’s laid across the length of their tiny communal sofa.

“What?” Soonyoung says distractedly from the kitchen table, where he’s scrolling through his phone and missing his mouth with his chopsticks.

“I just got my partner through for my Roman Poetry project,” Jihoon says, picking up his phone again to stare at the email. He takes it all back; this project is a terrible idea, a disaster ready to happen.

“Who is it?” Soonyoung says, shovelling more noodles into his mouth.

“Jeon Wonwoo.”

“Ha!” Soonyoung says, spitting out half of his mouthful again with the joy of his exclamation. “Your arch nemesis!”

“He’s not my arch nemesis,” he says, scowling at Soonyoung. “I’ve never even spoken to the guy.”

“Exactly!” Soonyoung says. “There’s, like, six Korean students on all of the Chongqing campus, and we all know each other, aside from you and Wonwoo. We all know you avoid him like he’s your arch nemesis.”

“Do you think our professor put us together because we’re both Korean?” Jihoon ponders. “I’ll have to ask Seungcheol and Joshua if they were partnered up too. Can I switch my partner out if I bring that up to my tutor?”

“Why would you want to switch him out? He’s a nice guy.”

“Sure,” Jihoon says. “Aside from the fact that he looks like he’s ready to kill anyone in his line of sight.”

Soonyoung snorts, but quickly sobers up. “Hey, you can’t blame the guy for having a poker face out of a mafia movie. It’s not his fault.”

“I can tell he’s a pretentious asshole from a mile away,” Jihoon says, opening a draft email and searching for Wonwoo’s university contact address. “He’d better not ruin my project idea.”

“Isn’t it meant to be a joint project?”

“Yes. We’re going to study my idea, together.”

Soonyoung shakes his head, going back to his noodles. “You should give him a chance, at least. You guys would get along.”

“We’ll see,” Jihoon murmurs, already halfway through his email about book seven, the notes he has for it, an outline for their presentation. He’s not giving Jeon Wonwoo any room for argument with this one.

-

He checks his inbox the next day, on the bus trip to campus. He has a response from Wonwoo, short and irritating.

_Book seven is fine by me—it looks like you have plenty prepared already. I’ll have to work hard to catch up! ;) Do you have any time to meet up today and discuss it?_

He glares at the winky face. Who does he think he is? This is an academic discussion about their important school project, not his KakaoTalk groupchat with his asshole friends. He’d put money on Soonyoung being in that group chat with him. He mentally curses Soonyoung, Wonwoo, and his racially biased professor, before sending an email back.

_No time today, have to focus on my other deadlines too. Read around about book seven and we can put our notes together later._

The next email in his inbox makes him feel even more sour. It’s an automated message from the University library.

_A book you have checked out, ‘Medea and the Female Legacy: Why She Stands Out in Roman Mythology’, has been requested by another library user. You have twenty-four hours to return it to the library or you will be fined._

Twenty-four hours? He puts his phone away in favour of seething in his seat and glaring out of the bus window. This is a bullshit system—the email had come through late last night, when no one should be going around requesting books. He’s only on campus for a few hours today, in the morning, so he’s going to have to return it before he leaves, and that’s nowhere near enough time to get everything he needs from it. It’s a big book, and he hadn’t been lying about needing to focus on his other deadlines.

Then a realisation hits him—this means someone else in his class is doing book seven, with a focus on Medea. The timing is too convenient for there to be any other explanation; they’re assigned a project like this, and Jihoon grabs his specific book from the library shelf, only for it to be snatched out of his hands. It’s not Wonwoo, because he’d only replied to him about their focus this morning, and if he has any sense he’ll be looking into the rest of the stories in book seven, rather than the story Jihoon is already partway through analysing. Someone else has their eye on his argument, his angle into this project, and he’s not happy about it.

He takes the book out of his bag and opens it, impulsively grabbing a pencil out of his case. _Enjoy having the book you gave me 0.5 seconds to read, asshole, _he writes in the corner of the title page, in neat Chinese, so that his classmate can read it and weep. He shuts the book again, and the hardback cover thumps satisfyingly.

He dumps the book into the requested returns box before he heads to his morning lectures. It’s difficult to focus on them when he’s got his mind on his book, on his project, on the classmate currently on his back.

He’s finished for the day by lunchtime, and heads into the library to get some work done before he heads home. When he passes the requested returns box, he notices the Medea book is gone, though the other books that had been underneath it are still there, and it gives him an idea. A smirk spreads across his face, his first smile that day, as he makes his way into a computer room, bagging a seat and logging on to the school system.

It doesn’t take him long to pull up the search for his book via the Library website. _On Loan_ it says, the orange status mark a warning sign against grabby hands. It gives him a rush of satisfaction to press _Request Book, _to see the notice popping up, to know that his classmate is now getting the same bullshit email he’d received this morning. A taste of their own medicine; the very system they’d harnessed, working against them. He almost gets the urge to rub his hands together in glee, but the girl at the computer opposite him is already giving him a strange look. He switches track to searching for similar books on the topic instead, while he’s online. Nothing comes close to being as perfect as that book is, but he finds a couple of useful titles, and spins out of his computer chair to go and check them out.

-

_Don’t we need to meet up to discuss the presentation plan? _Wonwoo has written on today’s email. _We don’t want to be researching the same thing by accident._

_I’ll make a shared google doc we can put our notes in, _Jihoon replies. _So we can track each other’s research._

_A book you’ve requested has been returned to the library,_ the University email says, and it makes Jihoon grin as he heads into the library to pick the book up from the returns desk, fuelled by his dark satisfaction.

“Thank you,” he says brightly to the receptionist, who is a little taken aback by his forwardness.

He settles down in the library to continue his Medea notes, swinging open the book cover only to be stopped at the title page. Next to his own pencilled message is some small, tidy Chinese.

_All are not saints who go to church._

He frowns at the message. Checking over his shoulder to make sure no one’s watching him, he opens his phone and searches for a breakdown of the sentence, in case he’s misunderstanding the Chinese. He’s not; it’s a proverb, relating to hypocrisy, a ‘practise what you preach’ sort of mentality. His classmate is calling him a hypocrite.

This is unbelievable. The book thief is reprimanding him for taking back his own book—the one he’d had first! He’s no hypocrite, because he’s taking back what he needs for the project! His correspondent simply wasn’t fast enough to pick it up off the shelf in the first place, and that’s not Jihoon’s problem.

He glares at the book and picks up his pencil. _All are not saints who steal other people’s project ideas, _he writes. _Choose a focus other than Medea and you won’t have a problem._

He’s not surprised when, less than an hour later, he gets an email from the Library.

_A book you have checked out, ‘Medea and the Female Legacy: Why She Stands Out in Roman Mythology’, has been requested by another library user. You have twenty-four hours to return it to the library or you will be fined._

-

“Wonwoo wants to know why you hate him.”

Jihoon looks up from his book, glancing at Soonyoung who’s laid out in front of their TV, flicking through channels. How he passes anything is beyond Jihoon; he doesn’t think he’s ever seen him studying.

“Why does he think I hate him?” Jihoon grunts. “I’ve been nothing but civil.”

“That’s the problem. Your civil is the bare minimum of human interaction.”

“Have you guys been talking about me?” he asks, lowering his book to look at Soonyoung properly.

“Wonwoo showed his emails from you to Junhui, and Junhui told me about it, so I thought I’d ask you.”

“Who’s Junhui?”

“Wonwoo’s friend, obviously. And mine. He’s on the dance course with me.”

“So you have been talking about me.”

“All I’m saying is there’s six Koreans in this University—”

“And we all know each other apart from me and Jeon, yeah, I know. It’s not deliberate, it just happened like that.”

Soonyoung shoots him a look. “Right—trying to avoid your own project partner isn’t deliberate. Look, I know he seems intimidating, but I promise he’s a softie underneath. Just like you. You’d get on well if you gave him a chance. You’re breaking his heart out here, Hoonie.”

“I’m sure I’m not,” Jihoon huffs. “But fine. I’m nearly finished with the Roman Society essay anyway; I guess I can focus more on this project now.”

“Thank you,” Soonyoung says, standing up from the chair and stretching. “I’d better go do some work, huh.”

“No kidding,” he mutters, bringing his book back up to eye level as Soonyoung pads from the room, creaking in ways a dancer really shouldn’t.

“You won’t regret it!” he calls over his shoulder as he’s leaving the room. “Wonwoo’s cool!”

-

The next time he picks up the book from the requested returns box, he goes to the title page first, to read the faint Chinese written under his last message.

_You’re in professor Wang’s class too? _It says. _There’s only so many books in the Metamorphosis; why are you surprised someone else needs this reading? Sharing is caring, friend._

It’s a little disappointing, how reasonable his classmate is being. Medea is a big focus of book seven, so of course he knows she’ll be mentioned in the other presentations focusing on that book. He just doesn’t want another presentation focusing specifically on her, when that’s the drive behind their argument. Still, maybe if he works with this person, he can get a sense of what their argument is about. Nudge them in a direction different from his own. Maybe they can share the book, and not have it mean the downfall of Jihoon’s presentation.

_Sure, _he writes. _Why don’t we help each other out? My number is XXXXXXXXXXX_

He looks at the writing for a minute, before he shuts the book and puts it back in his bag, swapping it out for his notes as he waits for Wonwoo to arrive and find his table. This makes sense. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, after all. He can share with this person, for the sake of finding out their research plan.

“Hi,” a voice says in Korean, and he looks up to see a ruffled Wonwoo taking the seat opposite him. “Sorry I’m late, I couldn’t see you behind the guy sitting on the table there, you’re so…”

Wonwoo trails off, but Jihoon levels him with a glare, fully aware of what he’d been about to say.

“We can’t all be Polyphemus,” he says, scathingly.

“The man-eating giant from the_ Odyssey_?” Wonwoo asks, quiet amusement in his eyes. “Yes, I think you’re right about that.”

“He’s also in book thirteen of the _Metamorphosis_, not that it’s relevant to us, because we’re doing book seven,” he says, mentally patting himself on the back for that transition away from the topic of height. “What have you managed to find so far?”

“I’ve been reading up on Medea a little, and on Cephalus and Procris. I wasn’t sure how much you wanted to include the other stories of the book, as Medea is the focus of your argument.”

“She’ll mark us down if we don’t discuss the other stories too,” he says. “The project is to focus on a book, not a story from a book. I’ll focus on Medea; if you can link the other stories back to her, that would strengthen our overall argument without leaving gaps in our approach.”

“Sounds good,” Wonwoo agrees, pulling out his notebook. Jihoon watches him write the approach Jihoon had just suggested in quick Korean, and feels a little taken aback by it. Maybe Wonwoo does care about this project, then.

Wonwoo speaks again. “Is it okay if we meet every couple of days? I can start work on our PowerPoint, so we don’t have to build it all at once at the end, but because we need our notes to go together seamlessly, it’ll be better if we can work on it together. I know you have other projects, but…” Wonwoo pushes the glasses up his nose, and if Jihoon didn’t know any better, he’d say he looks nervous. Nervous? To talk to Jihoon?

“Sure,” he says, in a moment of weakness. “Sounds good.”

“Great,” Wonwoo says, smiling for the first time since he’d sat down. “I was hoping you’d look over the notes I have about Medea’s similarities to Juno, actually.”

“Go over?”

Wonwoo fumbles for a second. “Yeah. Just, skim read it? And tell me if you think it’s okay?”

“I don’t think you need me to tell you that,” Jihoon says. “You’re one of the best in the class.”

“But you’re better,” Wonwoo says, quietly. “And I can tell this project is your baby.”

Jihoon blinks and takes the sheet of paper Wonwoo offers him. That makes him feel a little guilty about pushing this topic on Wonwoo, but he shoves the guilt down, focusing on Wonwoo’s notes instead. He refuses to feel bad when he’s only working to get them both a good grade.

“Yeah, it looks good,” he says, turning the page over. He has a lot of notes. Jihoon is almost impressed.

“Great,” Wonwoo says. “I’ll move on from Juno, then. Is it okay if I sit with you for a while? I have time before my next class.”

Jihoon hates studying with other people; they’re too distracting, too annoying, too draining on his focus. “Sure,” he says.

“Cool,” Wonwoo replies, pulling out one of his books and flicking through it. Within seconds he’s immersed, reading peacefully, not bothering him further. Jihoon blinks, then pulls his notepad over to go through his notes, in comfortable silence with Jeon Wonwoo.

It’s not what he expected from today, but it’s not all that bad.

-

He gets a text the next evening.

_Hey, _it says. _It’s the guy you’re book-wrestling with—how’s Medea going?_

Jihoon puts down his pen to pick up his phone instead. He’d almost forgotten about giving his classmate his number yesterday. It’s a guy, then. Interesting.

_Wonderfully,_ he replies. _I think you should give up before my argument blows yours out of the park._

While he waits for the reply, he goes into the online school system to request the book back, now that he knows it’s been picked up from requested returns. Then he goes to change the new number’s contact name to Book Boy.

_We’ll see about that! _Book Boy says. _I see you’re desperate to have the book back already. Too reliant on a single source, friend?_

_Funny you should bring that up—all are not saints who go to church, after all, _Jihoon quips. _And are we friends? I think you’re closer to being my enemy_

_Even an enemy knows their rival’s name, _Book Boy writes, and against his will, Jihoon smiles. He’s surprisingly smooth, for someone who’s clearly a giant nerd.

_You can call me Woozi_, _though I suppose you’ll learn my actual name when we do the presentations and see how inferior yours is._

_I thought we were swapping numbers to help share the book, not brutally diss each other :(_

Jihoon laughs. Maybe he can be friends with this person, once their presentations are over. Until then, he’s keeping his secrets close to his chest. _Can’t we do both? Hey, could you send me a picture of page 172? I have something written down about it but I can’t remember the quote exactly_

Less than a minute later, a picture of page 172 comes through, and he’s almost surprised. So Book Boy is willing to be helpful, then? Looks like his plan is falling into place.

_Can’t wait to see your presentation, Woozi. May the best man (?) win._

_You too, Book Boy. May the best man win._

-

“Hey,” Soonyoung says, catching him on his way out of the apartment the next morning. “I’m having a party tonight.”

Jihoon turns to level him with his darkest, coffee-fuelled, early morning glare. “You’re what?”

“I’m having a party here, tonight,” Soonyoung repeats, unaffected. Fucking morning people. “So you’re free to join if you like, but heads up that it might be kinda noisy, if you don’t want to.”

“Great,” Jihoon says. “I can’t wait to have my headphones on, on top of earbuds, to try and drown out your drunk screeching.”

“I’m not that bad,” Soonyoung protests, without much heat. “If you’re seeing Wonwoo today, tell him he’s invited too. He never checks KakaoTalk.”

“I’ll tell him Assholes United is happening in my own home, without my consent,” Jihoon says, turning back to their front door to leave before he misses his bus. “Sure, no problem.”

“Thanks!” Soonyoung says brightly, dipping back into his bedroom to brush down his bedhead.

He drops his bag onto the study desk with a thump, startling Wonwoo, who looks up from his book with wide eyes.

“Soonyoung cordially invites you to his dickhead fest tonight,” he announces, pulling out his notepad and slamming that onto the table. His morning lectures had been shit, too—clearly today is not his day.

“His party?”

Jihoon makes a noise of affirmation.

“Oh, yeah. I saw the message about that, but I don’t really want to go.” Jihoon looks up at Wonwoo in surprise. He’s leaning back in his chair and scratching the back of his neck. “I can only take so much of Soonyoung’s parties every semester. And I have a bunch of reading to get through.”

“You’re… not going?”

“It’s not really my scene anyway,” he admits. “I’ll go if he has one after the exams this semester.”

“Huh,” Jihoon says, sitting down and flicking through the notepad in front of him absently.

“Huh?”

“Thought I was the only one who turned down things like this. All the other Korean guys love it.”

“Nah,” Wonwoo says. “My roommate, Junhui, usually isn’t a party person either, but I think he’s going to this one. He has a crush on someone going, so he was easily swayed.”

“Really?” Jihoon perks up. “One of the Koreans?”

“If I told you that, I wouldn’t be a very good friend,” Wonwoo says, a smile pulling at his lips.

“I suppose not,” Jihoon admits. “At least you guys have a choice about the party, though. My only choice is to stay in the library overnight if I want to get any work done. I might catch better sleep here, too.”

“You can come over if you like.” Wonwoo says it so causally that it takes him a minute to process what he’s said, staring at the blank page of his notebook as his brain works through the words.

“To your place?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says. “We’re going to be working on the same project all evening anyway. We might as well do it in the quiet of my flat, if Junhui isn’t going to be home. We can get takeout, too.”

Jihoon mulls it over for a minute. Working in the noisy, busy, bustling library until all hours of the night, or going to study in a quiet flat. Probably a heated flat, too, which is something well needed in the Chongqing winter weather. And they can get takeout. Even if it does mean spending extended time with Jeon Wonwoo, the pros clearly outweigh the cons here.

“Sure,” he says, before he can think too hard about the Wonwoo part of the deal. It’ll be fine. He can be pleasant for a few hours.

They meet up outside the main building at the end of the day, but Jihoon had been let out of his last class late, so they have to run through the thick, falling snow to catch Wonwoo’s bus on time. Jihoon nearly slips on the ice, but braces himself on the bus door, hopping up to take a seat and rub at his frozen hands.

It’s a pretty full bus, so he and Wonwoo have to take two seats crammed next to each other near the back. Squashed between a broad guy sat next to him on one side and Wonwoo’s bony shoulder on the other, he’s glad that it’s not a long trip, Wonwoo ringing for them to get off at a complex popular for its location near the campus.

“Sorry about the mess. We’re students,” Wonwoo offers in way of explanation for the clothes piled up on chairs, the leaflets and empty packets littering the counters in the open-plan kitchen.

“I get it,” Jihoon answers. He couldn’t keep their flat clean even if he wanted to, with Soonyoung as a flatmate.

“You can put your stuff out wherever.” He switches to Chinese. “Junhui? You home?”

“Just headed out!” a voice calls through the flat, followed a few seconds later by a fresh-faced boy emerging from one of the rooms, buttoning up his shirt. He spots Jihoon and startles a little, voice a little shyer when he says a greeting. “Oh, hi there.”

“Hi,” Jihoon greets back, giving a small smile before going to put his bag on the sofa and take his coat off.

“You look good,” Wonwoo compliments Junhui. “Go get him!”

“Shut up,” Junhui scoffs, hitting him on the chest on his way to the door.

“Take your big coat,” Wonwoo advises. “The snow is getting worse out there.”

“Okay,” he agrees, pulling it off the hook. “Have fun studying!”

“Bye!”

Junhui leaves, and Wonwoo switches back to Korean. “Do you want to order food first? It might take a while to arrive in this weather.”

“Sure,” Jihoon agrees. Being here, he’s struggling to act as indifferent as he usually is, a little out of place in the domestic clutter of someone else’s home. He doesn’t know Wonwoo all that well, so he’s not really sure what he’s doing in his apartment, ready to have a study date with him.

They do a little studying while they wait for their order to come, and that helps him relax a little. He pulls out his books to pile up on the coffee table, kicking himself when he realises he’s forgotten to pick up the Medea book from requested returns. He’ll have to get it tomorrow morning, but the rest of his pile will do for tonight’s work. The two of them fall into a comfortable silence soon enough; Jihoon curled up on the creaking sofa, Wonwoo sat a good distance away at the kitchen table. His books are spread out over every inch of space so that when the food comes, they have to sit on the floor to eat it. Jihoon doesn’t mind; it’s more comfortable, really, than the two of them tying to be Good Host and Good Guest.

Wonwoo stands up to shut the blinds when they finish eating, as the sun has gone down, instead switching on the lamps in the room so that they can go back to studying. They don’t need to collaborate all that often, interactions limited to Wonwoo asking for Jihoon’s opinion on something once or twice, or Jihoon giving him useful information on his sections of the project. Regardless, it’s better than battling for a seat in the library, better than having to shove his earphones in to ignore the chatter in the study room, or the racket of Soonyoung’s party.

Eventually, Wonwoo stands up and groans. “Do you want to take a break? We’ve both had a long-ass day.”

Jihoon does a quick mental calculation to figure out if that’s polite talk for _I’m done with you now_. His results are inconclusive. “Do you want me to go? I can head back to the library if you’re tired.”

“No,” Wonwoo says, looking a little taken aback. “Really, let’s just take a break.”

Jihoon blinks at him. “And do what?”

“Do you want to play something?” Wonwoo suggests, walking over one of the shelves. “Do you play Switch?”

“Oh,” Jihoon says, staring at the Nintendo console Wonwoo is picking up. He thinks he might be salivating. “My Switch is back in Korea. My parents didn’t want to send me to China with distractions.”

“You want a game?” he says, slipping the controllers out and setting up the console on the table, sitting down next to Jihoon on the sofa and offering out a joy-con.

He gives in immediately, taking the joy-con with reverence. “Yeah. I really do.”

“Mario Kart?” Wonwoo asks, flicking through the menu.

“Perfect,” he replies, and as the loading screen pops up, the music feels a little like familiarity. A little like being home on break, a little like the rest he hasn’t felt since the start of the semester, the rest he so desperately needs, at this point. Wonwoo sets them up a game, building himself an abominable kart in the process.

“What is that!” Jihoon exclaims, going through the wheel options. A sensible Yoshi option is going to beat that Wario kart crime any day. “Are you trying to give yourself no drifting power at all?”

“Believe me, this works for me,” Wonwoo grins. “Going for a standard kart, on the other hand, isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

“I think you’ll find the skill is in the driver, Jeon, not the kart.”

“Is that so?” Wonwoo says, playful challenge in his voice. “We’ll see about that.”

The horn blasts, the karts speeding off, and he and Wonwoo immediately take over the CPU’s, knocking into each other to grapple for first and second place. Jihoon successfully takes a shortcut in the first lap, and enjoys the tension of trying to hold onto first place before Wonwoo overtakes in the second lap with the scandalous use of a blue shell.

“Asshole!” Jihoon shouts, and Wonwoo laughs.

“You said the skill is in the driver, but I think the luck is really in the shells.”

“Come back!” he presses his thumb hard into the acceleration button, until he knows he’ll have a circular imprint on his finger-pad afterwards, urging his kart to catch up to Wonwoo’s. The finishing line is coming up, Wonwoo is in sight just ahead of him, and he uses the last of his boost, but he’s too far ahead—Wario crosses the finishing line seconds before Yoshi does, and Jihoon lets out a roar in response. Wonwoo bursts into laughter.

“Next game!” Jihoon urges. “That was only one game!”

“Sure,” Wonwoo agrees, smirking as he clicks through the results to start the next race. “Not that it’ll help you, much.”

“You talk big for someone who just scraped first place,” Jihoon remarks, and Wonwoo just smiles, teeth bared and eyes crinkled.

There’s a short pause as they look at the loading screen. “You know, I didn’t know you liked things like this. Things that aren’t Medea.”

Jihoon blinks a few times. On the screen, the race countdown begins. “Well, same for you. But we’re both nerds. I’m sure all nerds like Mario in some regard.” His kart blasts off as the race begins, and Wonwoo curses as he lags behind. “Though some of us are better at it than others.”

“You distracted me!” Wonwoo protests, focusing hard on the screen.

“Shouldn’t have taken your eyes off the prize,” Jihoon says.

“I can still win, though.”

Wonwoo does not, in fact, win, and moves straight onto the next race while Jihoon is busy celebrating his first place, so Jihoon jostles his shoulder in revenge. When Wonwoo wins the overall tournament, he demands another, for the sake of fair competition. There’d only been one point between them at the end, anyway.

They play another tournament, and then another, the books forgotten on the table and notes left on the floor. He’s had his phone on silent since he’d sat down to study, so it startles him when, five tournaments in, it starts to ring.

“It’s mine,” Wonwoo says, standing up and going to the kitchen table as Jihoon rifles through notes to find his phone. “Hello?”

“Wonwoo!” Junhui’s voice shouts down the phone, so loud that Jihoon can hear it across the room. “I can’t come home!”

“Why?” Wonwoo says, and Jihoon turns down the volume on the Switch.

“The snow—it’s too snowy. The buses aren’t… bussing.”

“The buses aren’t running?”

“Yeah.” Junhui hiccups. “M’sleeping here tonight. Jeonghan said I should call and let you know.”

“Is he sleeping in my bed?” Jihoon asks, suddenly concerned. He has no problem with Soonyoung inviting people to sleep over, but he doesn’t want anyone in his room.

Wonwoo repeats the question down the phone.

“No!” Junhui shouts back, delighted. “I’m sleeping in Soonyoung’s! We’re going to…cuddle for warmth!” He says it like it’s a punchline, giggling to himself. “But you can tell him—Jihoon, tell Jihoon he can sleep in my bed if he wants. If he’s not sleeping in yours.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo says, a faint blush travelling up his neck and onto his face. He turns his back to Jihoon, as if that will stop him from hearing what was just said. “Be safe.”

“Always,” Junhui agrees. “Love you!”

“Yeah, you too,” Wonwoo says, ending the call.

“What did he say?” Jihoon asks, feigning ignorance. He really does not want to investigate drunk Junhui’s reasoning behind the belief that he might end up in Jeon Wonwoo’s bed.

“He’s sharing with Soonyoung tonight, but you can take his bed if you like. You might have to, if the buses aren’t running.” He walks over to a window to pull the blind up, but he doesn’t get much of a view; the snow is falling so thick and fast that it’s all white outside, the roads and streets and buildings covered in it. “Yeah, you’re going to have to. There’s no way you can walk home in that.”

“Damn,” he mutters, the good mood from the gaming ebbing away quickly.

“Hopefully it’ll die down overnight, and Uni won’t be closed tomorrow,” Wonwoo murmurs, drawing the blind again. “Are you tired?”

“A little,” he admits. He can’t remember the last time he’s spent so much of a day with someone else—even he and Soonyoung usually don’t hang out for hours on end, preferring to catch each other around the flat. Mario kart was cathartic, but socialising is still draining. “I don’t want to take Junhui’s bed, though. It would feel weird. Can I just sleep on your sofa?”

“Sure,” Wonwoo agrees. “You might have to steal Junhui’s blankets, still. I don’t think we have spares.”

Jihoon borrows Wonwoo’s bodywash in the shower and comes out smelling like him, borrows a spare toothbrush in the bathroom that’s thankfully new, and borrows Junhui’s bedcovers to drag out into the living room. After a wary inspection, he’s satisfied that they’re clean enough.

“Do you want to borrow some pyjamas?” Wonwoo says, disappearing into his room. “Sweatpants or something?”

“Uh,” Jihoon says, not sure which would be worse—sleeping in the clothes he’s been wearing all day, or borrowing something from Wonwoo, so that he double smells like him, so that he can go home tomorrow and Soonyoung will whistle at him in the hallway about doing the walk of shame.

“I think these will fit okay,” Wonwoo says, re-emerging with a plain shirt and sweatpants. He hands them over to Jihoon, and they feel so soft, and he so desperately wants to get out of his jeans, that he can’t find it in himself to refuse.

“Thanks.”

Wonwoo nods. He’s taken his glasses off to go to bed, and it makes him look tired, soft, draws attention to the cat-like slope of his eyelids. “Feel free use the kitchen in the morning, if you wake up first,” he says, walking through the apartment to turn off lights. “Anything you like.”

“Okay,” Jihoon agrees. “Thanks.”

“Goodnight.”

He pauses for a second. “Goodnight,” he replies. In the dark of the room, the word seems intimate, personal. Like he’s just given Wonwoo something precious.

-

In the unfamiliarity of the evening, he forgets to set alarms for the next morning, and finds himself in a disoriented panic when he wakes up to the noise of something clanging. It takes him a few moments to gather his bearings, realise that he’s still in Wonwoo’s apartment, and look over the back of the sofa towards the kitchen to see Wonwoo standing there, picking up a mug from the floor.

“Sorry,” he mutters, voice gravel-deep with the presumably early hour.

“S’okay,” Jihoon croaks, then clears his throat. “What time is it?”

Wonwoo squints at the time on the oven. “7AM. School is cancelled because of the weather, but my alarms woke me up anyway. Didn’t mean to wake you up too.”

Jihoon had slumped back under his covers as soon as he’d heard the word ‘cancelled’. “Don’t worry about it.”

He doesn’t remember falling asleep again, but the next time he wakes up, Wonwoo is sat on the floor of his own apartment, watching TV wrapped in his blankets. His hair is standing up in tufts, and he’s resting his head against the arm of the sofa, looking gentle and content.

“You could’ve woken me up if you wanted to sit on the sofa,” Jihoon mumbles, sitting up.

Wonwoo shrugs. “It’s okay. Do you want breakfast? I think we have some leftovers in the fridge.”

They heat up some ramyeon and eat together in companionable silence, both still in their bed clothes, rumpled and drowsy. When he can feel himself nodding off in his seat, he asks if he can put on some coffee.

The ends of Wonwoo’s sweatpants slip over his feet as he walks into the kitchen, so he rolls them up as he waits for the water to boil. “Shall we work on the Minos story today?” he says, sifting through the contents of the cupboard to pick out the coffee granules.

“Can we take a day off?” Wonwoo groans, rubbing his eyes with his hands, elbows on the table. “Or at least a few hours? Just until this evening? We’ve been given a rare break. The weather intervened and said, yes children, you shall rest.” He parts his hands to look at Jihoon. “I feel like I need it.”

Jihoon looks at him, in all his bed-head, early-morning glory, and can’t help but relent. “Okay. I probably do too, to be honest.”

“Thanks,” Wonwoo says.

Jihoon continues making his coffee, bringing a cup over to Wonwoo when he’s done, setting his own down on the counter in front of him.

“Oh,” Wonwoo says, looking at it like he hadn’t expected one. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Jihoon says, taking a sip of his drink to hide the fact that he can’t look at him. “Drink up. I think you need it.”

Wonwoo picks up his mug obediently, and the two of them drink together without speaking for a little while.

“Jihoon?” Wonwoo says eventually.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you try so hard to avoid me last semester? And this semester, until our project?”

Jihoon rubs at his arm awkwardly. “Was it that obvious?”

He shrugs. “All the Koreans know each other, but you didn’t want anything to do with me,” Wonwoo says, though without any heat. “It was kind of obvious, yeah.”

“Ah,” he sighs, putting his mug back on the table. “I suppose I made presumptions about you… that I shouldn’t have.” He swallows down his impulse to be defensive. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, or anything.”

“Presumptions?” Wonwoo says, eyebrows raised.

“You’re a little…” He doesn’t want to say intimidating. “Unapproachable.”

“You were avoiding me because I’m scary-looking?” Wonwoo asks.

“No!” he protests. “Not scary-looking. I just thought there was no good reason to talk to you, or even to try. I didn’t know you even knew who I was.”

“Even though we have all our friends in common?”

“Soonyoung is barely my friend,” Jihoon says. “More like the pain in my ass.”

“So Jeonghan, Joshua, Seungcheol—”

“Yeah, okay, I know, I know. It’s not a good enough excuse. I’m sorry. I know better now. You’re not an asshole after all.”

“Gee, thanks,” Wonwoo says, and Jihoon looks down at the table.

“I’m glad I got partnered with you, is what I’m trying to say. I don’t speak to people outside my friendship group much.”

“But it was worth it this time?”

He looks shyly into his coffee, shrugging his shoulders in a display of nonchalance. “Yeah. You own a Switch, after all.”

Wonwoo laughs at him, eyes scrunching up. “You want a game?”

Jihoon smiles too. “Hell yeah.”

-

On the bus home that evening, he thinks over that conversation again, feeling a little guilty that he couldn’t say the whole truth. It would be too hard to get the words out, though; _I took one look at you and decided I wanted nothing to do with you because I thought you were hot, and I don’t need that sort of distraction. I didn’t talk to you because I didn’t want you to be as nice as you are._ It’s even worse than that, in fact—Wonwoo is more than nice. _You’re too compatible with me. Annoyingly, Soonyoung was right—it’s so easy to get along with you. I’m just trying to get through studying in China without getting distracted by boys. Without thinking about you, Jeon Wonwoo._

It’s like spending nearly twenty-four hours with the boy in question has unearthed the seed of vague attraction he’d felt towards Jeon Wonwoo at the beginning of the year. As it turns out, the seed has been growing without his help, blooming and busting out, and it’s a problem. It’s taking up too much space—it’s making him _feel_ things. Things he’d been trying to avoid.

Deep in his thoughts, he nearly misses his stop at the library to pick the Medea book on his way home. The University had announced its facilities open again only hours ago, as the snow had cleared enough to travel. When he’s back on the bus home, he gets a text from Book Boy.

_Did you only just pick it up? I thought the library system was bugging or something. Unlike you to be so unpunctual, Woozi._

_Forgot to grab it yesterday, and then the snow was a small obstacle today_

_So even you are thwarted by snow? I thought nothing could keep you from your precious Medea book._

He scoffs, resting his head against the bus window as he types out a reply. _I do, in fact, value my life more than the book. Only a bit more, though._

_Good to hear. Who would I have to tear down my project if not you?_

He smiles down at his phone, then catches himself doing it, and schools his face again, looking around to see if anyone had noticed. _You’d have to perish, I suppose, _he says. _God, I feel like perishing rn_

_How come?_

He pauses, tapping the back of his phone as he tries to think of a way to phrase this. A little surge of adrenaline runs through him as he types out and sends the message, putting his feelings out to this stranger a little exciting, a little dangerous. _There’s this guy I like. I’ve been denying it for months, but some things have happened… and I can’t really deny it anymore. I don’t know what to do about it._

Book Boy answers quickly. _Ask him out, obviously. There’s no harm in trying._

_There’s a lot of harm. I’m not a forward person like that. It’s difficult for me be open, especially as we’ve only just become friends. Also… we have a lot of friends in common. If he rejects me, everyone would know about it._

_But at least you won’t have regrets. That would be worse. If you confess, you’ve got a 50/50 of it being good or bad. If you don’t do anything, there’s only regret._

He chews on his lip, reading over the message a few times. Book Boy has a point. He hadn’t wanted anything to distract him from school, but after the last day of his life learning about Wonwoo as a person, giving him a real chance and being rewarded with some of the most fun he’s had this semester, it’s like his perspective has been tipped on its head. How can he go back to pretending Wonwoo doesn’t exist? How can he ignore this?

He can’t. But he can do something about it, and get a result one way or another.

A notification vibrates the phone in his hand, bringing his attention back to the screen. _A book you have checked out, ‘Medea and the Female Legacy: Why She Stands Out in Roman Mythology’, has been requested by another library user. You have twenty-four hours to return it to the library or you will be fined._

He smiles. _Thanks, Book Boy._

_No problem, Woozi._

_-_

The campus is fully open again the next day, which he’s thankful for, as there’s only three days left until their presentation. Jihoon has made the carefully calculated decision of asking Wonwoo on a date today, while the memory of their day together is still fresh, and before Jihoon’s courage can ebb away, dooming him to a life of pining from a distance. If he says yes, that’s enough advance time to schedule in a date after their presentation, when they’ll both have some free time. If he says no, Jihoon can hide from the world for three days, uncomfortably get through the presentation project with him, then go back to pretending Wonwoo doesn’t exist. It’s a plan he’s been mulling through overnight, and the most fool-proof thing he can come up with.

He and Wonwoo aren’t scheduled to meet up today, but he can usually find the boy in the library between his classes. Sure enough, it’s not hard to spot him when he walks in, talking with Seungcheol by one of the study desks. Wonwoo’s back is to him, but he can see Seungcheol is smiling before he pats him on the arm and leaves, waving to Jihoon as he passes by. He barely registers it, tunnel-vision on Wonwoo ahead of him.

“Wonwoo!” he says, plucking up all the courage he has, approaching the other boy without his voice shaking all that much.

Wonwoo turns around to face him, looking stunned.

“Hey. So I was wondering—”

“I think Seungcheol just asked me on a date.”

Jihoon blinks, then turns around to look behind him, where he just catches the sight of Seungcheol’s back disappearing through the library doors. He turns back to look at Wonwoo, who’s also staring after him. “He did?”

Wonwoo nods slowly. “Yeah.”

“Oh.” He’s so wildly thrown off track he can’t even bring up the right thing to say. “Congratulations?”

“Thanks,” Wonwoo murmurs, finally focusing on him. “I wasn’t expecting that. Maybe he’s…” He trails off, shaking himself and turning around to gather up his bag and coat. “Sorry, did you want something?”

“No,” Jihoon says quickly, stepping aside. “It’s nothing. Don’t be late to class.” He walks away, not even sure where he’s going, but desperate to be out of Wonwoo’s line of sight, out of that situation, trying to fight the well of disappointment dipping low in his stomach. He takes the stairs up into the non-fiction section, ready to hide out in between some bookshelves until Wonwoo leaves the building.

He spends the rest of his day trying to focus on his work and failing spectacularly. When he realises he’s been rereading the same page for nearly half an hour, he gives up, throwing down his pen in favour of walking a lap of the library, mind and body restless.

He should be glad, really. This way, he has confirmation that Wonwoo doesn’t like him that way, clearly happy to go on a date with Seungcheol instead, without actually getting rejected by Wonwoo. This way, no one knows that Jihoon was going to ask him out. No embarrassment. No hassle.

On the other hand, he’s ridiculously frustrated by it. He’s not sure what to do now. Wrestle with his feelings and wallow in self-pity, he supposes. He comes to a stop at the second-floor balcony, looking down over the tables of students working diligently, heads bowed over books and screens, watching them work for a little while. He stays there long enough for it to get dark outside, for him to have an excuse to pack up and go home.

Just before he’s about to go the bed, he gets a text.

_Did you tell him?_

Jihoon stares at the text, considers ignoring it, but it’s not Book Boy’s fault Wonwoo doesn’t want him. _No, _is all he types back.

_Are you going to?_

_He doesn’t like me like that. I don’t want to talk about it._

_:(_

Book Boy types on and off for a minute, leaving the smiley face hanging in cyberspace, frowning at him.

_If it makes you feel any better, Woozi, I like you. He’s missing out on a catch._

_You’ve never even met me. You’d be surprised._

_We’ve talked, so it counts. Can we meet after the presentations on Thursday? I’d really like to meet you in person._

It’s his impulse to back out of meeting someone new if he can, but he needs an excuse to run off after the presentation anyway. Meeting with a stranger might help distract him from having to get through the presentation Wonwoo, too.

_Yeah, okay. By the entrance of the building? After the presentations?_

_Perfect. See you then, Woozi :)_

-

They’ve got less than twenty-four hours until the presentation and Wonwoo is still making changes to their powerpoint, and it’s driving him crazy, watching his cursor moving things in millimetres or editing the odd sentence on their shared slides. He’s supposed to be avoiding Wonwoo, but he agrees to meet in the library if only to put him to rest, to come to an agreement that they need to be done. They’ve already prepared everything they can for tomorrow, and Jihoon needs the next day to give him some space away from the work, to get into his public speaking mindset.

“Hi,” Wonwoo says, not looking up at him when he sits at the table. “I need you to check this over.”

“I’ve looked at this powerpoint so many times that I think it’s been burned into my eyeballs.”

Wonwoo sends him a flat look. “You ever heard of peer review? It means you catch things I might have missed.”

Jihoon rolls his eyes, dragging Wonwoo’s laptop over to him to click through the presentation. To be fair, he hadn’t really been looking through the slides that solely belong to Wonwoo, because he trusts him to be meticulous enough about his own work.

“You’re missing a reference here,” he says, pointing at a bullet point. “Other than that, it looks fine.”

“What? Where?” Wonwoo spins the laptop around so he can look.

“’Procris’s fundamental differences to Medea only further pronounce Medea’s strengths,’” he reads out.

“Shit,” Wonwoo mutters, clicking onto the slide. “Oh, wait. I know where this is from.” Wonwoo digs around in his bag to pull out a book, and Jihoon feels like he’s just been hit over the head, or like the air has been sucked from his lungs, or that maybe he’s tripping out, seeing that book in Wonwoo’s hands. He’s holding none other than the Medea book, his Medea book, the one with his writing on the title page and his phone number in the messages and his Book Boy on the other end, encouraging him to confess.

It’s Wonwoo. Wonwoo had encouraged him to confess… to Wonwoo.

He’s going to lose his mind.

“Hello?”

He snaps back to attention again to see Wonwoo staring at him, one hand waving in front of Jihoon’s face.

“What?”

“I said, is that all? Did you want to run over the cards again or anything?”

“No,” he says, too quickly, then stands up. “It’s fine.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo says, looking up at him, startled. “Do you have a class to get to?”

“Yeah,” he says, though he doesn’t.

“Okay,” Wonwoo says, still staring at him. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

It’s like he’s working on instinct, his legs carrying him out of the library before he knows he’s there, barely paying attention to where he’s going. It’s Wonwoo. His friend crush and romantic crush—they’re both Wonwoo, and it’s kind of hysterical, but also absolutely terrible. There’s no way he can meet with Book Boy now. No way. He’ll die of embarrassment. If he even lives that long—his heart is pounding in his chest, his cheeks hot with adrenaline, or fear, or something.

He sees his bus pulling up and hops on. He can’t remember if he has anymore classes that day, but it’s not like he’d be able to focus on them anyway. It’s time to go home, curl up in bed, and have the rest of his crisis in the comfort of his own home, away from Jeon Wonwoo.

-

He arrives to the class early, as he always does, but he’s not the first one there. Seungcheol is in the empty classroom, standing at the podium and practicing his presentation in careful Chinese.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly as Jihoon comes in.

“It’s okay,” Jihoon gestures. “You can keep practising. I don’t mind.”

“Nah,” Seungcheol shrugs, coming up to sit in the seat in front of him. “If you’re here that means the rest of the class aren’t far behind. Can’t show Joshua up by practicing my shitty Chinese.”

“You sound good,” Jihoon says, honest. “Don’t worry so much.”

“That’s just the problem,” Seungcheol admits. “Presentations are worrying anyway. It’s harder to speak when it’s in front of loads of people.”

“It’s harder to speak in front of people even in your first language,” he points out. “You’re doing well to even be here.”

Seungcheol manages a half-smile. “Thanks.”

They fall into a comfortable silence as students start to filter in, and Jihoon is itching with an urge he knows he can’t scratch, not with Wonwoo due any minute. But he hasn’t been able to think of much but Wonwoo since yesterday (and since the snow day, and since starting at Chongqing) so it’s hard to side-track his brain from it’s one focus.

“How did your date with Wonwoo go?” he blurts out, and it’s embarrassing, because he doesn’t usually ask about things like that, but he’s so curious he might burst. He’d worked out that Wonwoo had sent him the text asking to meet up with Woozi right after his date with Seungcheol, and he’s been trying to figure out if it was meant in a friendly or flirty way since his revelation, trying to decipher the elusive mind of Jeon Wonwoo.

“Date?” Seungcheol says with a laugh. “Did he tell you it was a date?”

“Yes…” Jihoon says, thrown off. “I was talking to him right after you did, in the library the other day.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, pulling a face. “He thought it was a date, but it wasn’t. I just wanted to ask him about his…” Seungcheol trails off, eyeing up Jihoon. “I wanted to catch up with him. He got the wrong idea.”

Jihoon stares at him. “How?”

Seungcheol shrugs. “It’s beyond me. He started asking me about a book, this book on Medea he had, about texting him. We haven’t texted in a few weeks, it’s why I wanted to meet up. I don’t know, I lost track of the conversation then. Wonwoo is weird sometimes.”

He slumps back in his chair, looking around the hall. Wonwoo had agreed to a date with Seungcheol because he’d thought he was Woozi—Seungcheol had come up to him the morning after their conversation, after all. Right when Jihoon had tried to talk to him instead.

Wonwoo wants to go on a date with Woozi. This changes everything.

“Anyway, he’s single. Free. Not dating anyone,” Seungcheol says, just as Jihoon spots Wonwoo entering the lecture hall on the other side of the room.

Jihoon sends him a glare, and Seungcheol just shrugs. “Just saying.”

Their lecturer enters after Wonwoo, calling for the students to sit down quickly and beginning to talk about the grading for the presentation in quick Chinese. Jihoon can’t focus, looking at Wonwoo coming quickly and quietly towards his row, sliding into the seat next to him.

Jihoon stares at him without really looking. Wonwoo wants to meet up with him after this class, but he doesn’t know it. Jihoon wants to ask Wonwoo out, but he doesn’t know it. Wonwoo isn’t dating Seungcheol; in fact, he’s actively pursuing Woozi, who is also Jihoon. He is aware that, somehow, he’s come to be the one holding all the cards here, but he doesn’t even know if he wants to keep playing, when it involves revealing his whole hand, baring his soul to this boy.

“You okay?” Wonwoo asks, blinking at him with gentle eyes.

“Yeah,” he nods, turning to face the first pair that are walking out to begin their presentation.

Some minutes later, he gets a text. He takes his phone out to put it on silent, when he sees the text is from Book Boy, and jerks a little, angling his phone to hide it from Wonwoo. He’s not looking his way, too busy burying his own phone in his bag.

_Good luck! :) _he’s written, and Jihoon can feel his resolve melt right there. There’s no way he can stand up Wonwoo after this class, leave him hanging at the building doors because Jihoon is too afraid to confront the mess he’s helped make. He’s going to have to come clean, even if it means putting his heart in Wonwoo’s hands and hoping he chooses not to crush it.

_You too, _he responds, then puts his phone away to focus on the class, waiting for their own time slot. For just ten minutes, he needs to focus on Medea and his project, his one constant of the last few weeks. The reason for all this in the first place. If he can get through this class, he can get through a confession, too.

“Jeon Wonwoo and Lee Jihoon!” the lecturer calls out, as the class clap for the previous pair. Wonwoo smiles at him as he stands, and Jihoon follows him out to the front.

“Good job,” Wonwoo murmurs in his ear as they leave the front, the polite applause of the class dying around them. “You nailed that!”

“You too,” Jihoon whispers as they sit down. It’s relieving, to have the past few weeks of work completed, their presentation so well received and smooth. As he looks at Wonwoo, though, watching their classmates talk, anxiety sits in his stomach. With the final obstacle down, all he has left is the finishing line.

When class ends, Wonwoo says goodbye to him and Seungcheol and leaves with the initial rush of people, as Jihoon packs up his bag slowly, wanting to leave the room last, dragging out the inevitable and avoiding the crowds in one go.

Leaving the lecture hall feels like he’s walking into a different set of corridors to usual, a different Chongqing campus. He can see Wonwoo standing by the doors, glancing between his phone and the crowds, and he considers walking straight past him, leaving him there, never having to look back. He could go back to ignoring him. It would be so easy. (It wouldn’t be at all easy.) He could transfer schools. He could go back to Korea. He could drop off the face of the earth.

He comes to a stop in front of Wonwoo, who blinks at him. “Hi.”

“Do you want to go to the café or something?” Jihoon says. “I feel like we need to sit down before we talk about this.”

Wonwoo blinks again, eyes wide behind his glasses. “Woozi?”

Jihoon looks slightly to the left of his face, unable to maintain eye contact. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Wonwoo stares at him for a second, then smiles so bright and blindingly that Jihoon’s eyes are drawn back to his face, like he has no choice but to look on and bask in his glow. When he lets out a little delighted laugh, it makes him sway a little on the spot.

“Why would you apologise?” he says, eyes twinkling. “I had been hoping… I thought it was a far reach, but I guess not.”

Jihoon gapes at him, trying to find his tongue again. “You thought… that I was…?”

“I was hoping. It makes things easier, the fact that both of my crushes are the same person,” Wonwoo says, then bites his own lip, a faint blush rising to his cheeks. He even blushes prettily, pink splashed under his cheekbones and eyes turned up at the corners. Jihoon’s heart jumps in his chest at the confession, feeling heady and light and like maybe this was a good idea, after all.

“Yeah,” he says, before he can think about it. “It does make it easier.”

Wonwoo smiles again. “When you told me you wanted to confess to your friend—”

“It was you, yeah,” Jihoon says quickly, looking around them once at the empty lobby before looking back at Wonwoo. “Didn’t know I was talking to you, then. Only yesterday, when you got the book out.”

Wonwoo laughs, running a hand through his hair as he exhales and takes a step back. Then he collects himself, and steps forwards again, extending his hand to Jihoon. “Do you want to go and sit in the café? We should talk, for a while, I think.”

Surprisingly, it’s easy to take his hand, to slip their fingers together and feel Wonwoo’s warm palm in his own. It feels nice, so to balance it out, he scowls at Wonwoo. “That’s what I suggested in the first place!”

Wonwoo giggles again. Actually giggles, and it’s so infuriatingly cute that the scowl doesn’t last on his face for long, clearing the crease between his brows like Wonwoo had physically reached out to smooth down his skin. “Then lead the way, Woozi.”

Jihoon looks down at the floor to hide the smile on his face as he leads them out through the building doors, to cross the campus together, hand in hand.

**Author's Note:**

> i know it's obvious from a million miles away how the plot will resolve, but please let me know if i had any wonwoo/book boy mix ups in there! the double identity thing confused me a bit during writing lol though i think i caught them all
> 
> i did model the school on my own uni education, though i know chinese schools are typically a lot more intense than this! the setting was mostly to get them out of korea, and to have junhui right there
> 
> the assignment they do in this fic is based on a real assignment i did in my first year of uni! classics + literature students! unite!
> 
> hit me up on [twitter](https://twitter.com/hope_boos) if you wanna talk! <3  
you can retweet this fic [here!](https://twitter.com/hope_boos/status/1162432698142658560)  
thanks to my beta [rachel](https://twitter.com/koyahyah) for the support!


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